blog

Playbook Update: New Videos, Newsletter, Toolkits, and More

June 29, 2016
• By
Anna R. Hurt

We have reached the halfway point of the first year of the Disaster Philanthropy Playbook. These first six months have been a whirlwind of outreach to current and potential Playbook users on all the tools and resources they now have at their fingertips.

During the last month, we kicked off an entirely new group of efforts with the Playbook, including this blog and the first issue of our quarterly newsletter, designed specifically for Playbook users. There are also a few other really awesome additions that I want to make sure you see:

Playbook Videos: One of the things we are focusing on with the Playbook is content that comes in a variety of formats. We have taken key strategies and turned them into brief, informative, and easy-to-digest videos. Look for these new Playbook videos in the introduction section for each of the following strategies: community and economic recovery, environment, health, mitigation and preparedness, and housing. While you are checking out the new videos, we also encourage you to explore the other resources contained in these strategies!

Toolkits: We’re currently developing downloadable toolkits that will provide very practical road maps to many of the topics you’ve asked about. For starters, we’ve added guidelines for launching a disaster fund and vetting a nongovernmental organization. We’re also planning toolkits on additional topics, such as communications and social media, long-term recovery groups, building disasters into a grant strategy, and more.

I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the June 12 shooting in Orlando here. Many of you have expressed a desire to see an addition to the Playbook that provides guidelines for addressing incidents of terror or tragedy in your community. We recognize this need and know that it’s in the forefront of your minds, especially in times like this. I’m working to capture some of the work being done in Florida and the lessons from similar events to add this strategy to the Playbook during the coming months.

Help grow YOUR community
Finally, more than anything, we want the Disaster Philanthropy Playbook to grow into a community that interacts, learns, and leans on each other. Toward that goal, we’re planning a Twitter chat next quarter. Please take the survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/playbooktopics to help us determine the topic.

I hope you’ll also email me to let me know how you’re using the Playbook, or fill me in on work you’ve done that’s related to our Playbook strategies. The success of this program truly rests on everyone’s willingness to share what has worked and what has not worked in each of these strategies. Here’s to learning and leaning on each other for a long time to come.